Businesses have increasingly discovered that the Internet can be an effective forum for increasing brand awareness. To accomplish this goal, businesses frequently place advertisements on web pages that they believe will be viewed by potential customers. These advertisements can take a variety of forms, including banner ads. A banner ad is a graphic image that advertises a product or service. A banner ad typically contains a link, so that when a user clicks on the ad, the link is activated and he or she is sent to another web page having further information about the product or service being advertised. A banner ad can be displayed within the boundaries of a web page itself, or in a window, commonly referred to as a pop-up window, that is separate from the window in which the user's browser runs. A problem with popup windows is that they are sometimes seen as intrusive, and users often close them as soon as they appear.
Businesses have also discovered that, in addition to being a good advertising forum, the Internet also provides a convenient way to survey consumers in order to determine what impact Internet advertising is having on them. Recruiting users to take surveys can be a challenging task. U.S. Pat. No. 6,070,145, entitled “RESPONDENT SELECTION METHOD FOR NETWORK-BASED SURVEY” proposes a method in which visitors to a web site are randomly chosen to be solicited to take an on-line survey. If a visitor is chosen, then a graphic image soliciting the visitor to take the survey is transmitted from a surveyor to the web site being visited. The image is then displayed to the visitor. If the visitor is not chosen, then a dummy image is displayed.
Another survey method is described in pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/349,650, filed Jul. 8, 1999, entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR EVALUATING AND/OR MONITORING EFFECTIVENESS OF ON-LINE ADVERTISING.” The method described therein involves determining whether a user has been exposed to an on-line ad such as by checking cookies stored on the user's computer. Based, at least in part, on this determination, a decision is made as to whether or not to solicit the user to take an on-line survey.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/349,650, filed Jul. 6, 2001, entitled “Method and System for Conducting An On-Line Survey,” describes yet another way to carry out on-line surveys. In that system, in response to receiving a request for a block of data from a user's computer, a determination is made whether the user has previously been solicited to take an on-line survey. Thereafter, computer-readable instructions are returned with the requested block of data that facilitate invoking a procedure for soliciting the user to take an on-line survey.
Collecting data through the use of on-line surveys provides a fast and effective way to determine how well an Internet advertisement is being received. A problem with on-line surveys, however, is that many users are annoyed when solicited to participate in such surveys. This is particularly true when survey solicitations take the form of pop-up windows.